Save Article

Why Airlines Are Flying High

Private equity is one of the least known but most significant contributors to the industry’s performance.

By

Rick Schifter

Feb. 3, 2015 7:23 p.m. ET

Over the past two weeks, one U.S. airline after another has reported record earnings for 2014. This was the fifth consecutive year of industry profitability, during which time aggregate net income exceeded $30 billion. That’s not bad for an industry that lost $29 billion from 1990 through 2009—and whose performance once inspired Warren Buffett to suggest that investors would have been better off had a capitalist shot down Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk.